For those of you wondering what it's like to travel with a double bass, here's a photo taken at the Kirkwall airport in the Orkney Islands.
After an amazing tour in Denmark with Lissa, I met up with Crooked Still for the start of our summer CD release tour. Still Crooked, our third CD and first with new members Brittany Haas and Tristan Clarridge will be officially released on June 24th, but we decided to jump the gun and make it a world tour by spending a month in Europe before heading back home for festival season.
After Denmark the next stop was the Orkney Islands for the amazing Orkney Folk Festival. The lineup at this festival was amazing and we got to collaborate with our friends Kris Drever and Eamonn Coyne as well was Irish music powerhouse Solas and English folk singer Martin Simpson. Martin blew me away with his version of Little Musgrave, a song I perform with Lissa quite often. Here I am sitting in with Kris and Eamonn at one of the concerts.
It was an amazing time and I don't think any member of Crooked Still went to bed before six AM for the entire festival. It never really gets completely dark in Orkney this time of year which I think helps with the party stamina.
In an odd stroke of luck, the weather was perfect for the four days we were there and we were able take an epic 12 mile bike ride out to see some incredible standing stones and a 5000 year old village called Scara Brae. This place is older than Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China! Not to mention these things are huge!
After Orkney, we headed back to mainland Scotland for some gigs in Glasgow, Edinburgh and a quick trip down to Newcastle, England. Here's us at BBC Scotland after performing live on a radio show.
Except for our excursion to England, we relied entirely on public transportation for this portion of the trip, which is no small accomplishment with a double bass, cello, 5 people and all of our gear!
Here's slightly dark, but nice sounding clip of us at our Newcastle show.
We're now in Ireland and have had a great week of gigs! We also had a day off where we were able to hike out through a cow pasture to get a view of the Cliffs of Moher from the south, away from all the tourists. Ireland is a pretty stunning place.
We're here for two more nights and then head straight to California for a few shows! Check out the brand spanking new Crooked Still website for details. www.crookedstill.com
